


I Did Just Come Here To Dance

by OneTwoVillainess



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Bending (Avatar TV), Blind Character, Dancing, Gay Zuko (Avatar), How Do I Tag, Lesbian Toph Beifong, Not Beta Read, Partially Blind Zuko (Avatar), Partially Deaf Zuko (Avatar), Toph Beifong and Zuko are Siblings, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, no beta reader we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:01:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26166076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneTwoVillainess/pseuds/OneTwoVillainess
Summary: "Is this weird? Yes. Is this probably going to end badly with at least one of them injured? Yes. Are they most likely going to get bored after 15 minutes? Yes. Would they then have wasted $13 bucks on garbage? Yes. But is he bored enough to try this? Yes."Toph and Zuko, with an eyepatch, equal two blind gay idiots that can't and don't dance but during the middle of winter break with all their friends gone they're willing to try it anyways as long as no one see's them of course
Relationships: Aang & Toph Beifong & Katara & Sokka & Suki & Zuko, Jin & Zuko (Avatar), Mai & Zuko (Avatar), Minor or Background Relationship(s), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Suki & The Gaang (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar), Toph Beifong & Zuko
Comments: 2
Kudos: 119





	I Did Just Come Here To Dance

“Come on I am bored,” whines Toph as she walks down an aisle in the mall’s Game Stop running her hand over the different games as she goes.  
“Well, what do you want me to do about it, I am bored too,” says Zuko who’s trailing behind her further into the store.  
School’s still out on winter break but it’s after the winter solstice so Toph’s fled her family home in Gao Ling and has returned to the city. She’s moved in with him and uncle for the remainder of the break, taking over the study that uncle had never actually used as her new bedroom. This way she isn’t alone with just Momo for company in the dorms at Ba Sing Se university where she, Zuko, and the rest of their friends go.   
Today, they had been roped into going shopping at the mall with Uncle Iroh. He had said something about needing new cufflinks when they were at home, but so far they’ve been three hours and when the pair had finally wandered off to find more something interesting half an hour ago uncle still hadn’t made his way to the cuff links yet. That man can do some serious shopping.  
They had ended up in front of a Game Stop and decided to go in and browse because hey, maybe they could find something new for game nights, plus they’ve hitten the stretch of break defined by the never ending boredom that made you wish for school to start again.   
“How long can he possibly shop for?” whines Toph.  
Zuko snorts, “You don’t want to know,” he responds.  
“You just had to drag me along with you didn’t you,” she says pausing in front of a display of over priced knick knacks which she starts picking up and putting down haphazardly.  
“Hey, I didn’t drag you along,” says Zuko browsing over a rack of nintendo switch games “Uncle, told us he was going to go shopping at the mall today and WE BOTH we’re so bored just laying around the apartment that WE agreed to go with him,”.  
Toph waves a small big headed figurine in her hand around, “Well that’s not how I remember it,”.  
“Well that’s how it happened,” she puts down the figurine and starts walking again, Zuko sighs and trails after her again. He’s acting as her eyes today after she had decided to leave her flying seeing eye lemur, Momo, at home, claiming that in mall and stores and other places filled with large crowds of stupid people she couldn’t make it more than five feet without someone trying to pet him even though he was working and that she didn’t feel like dealing with that. He doesn’t mind, but she’s a wanderer so he has to pay attention to where she is because not only does she wander away on purpose but then she’ll also hide from people trying to find her and start scamming any good samaritans that stop and offer her help.  
“But why did you have to make me leave the apartment, at least there we had seats and tea and snacks,” she laments.  
Zuko refrains from reminding her again that he did not in fact make her leave the apartment but she invited herself when uncle had mentioned the mall earlier. They continue wandering through the game stop until Toph stops to take a break and mess around with a random game demo set up.  
Zuko turns away from the game and looks at the nearby shelves full of memorabilia and more knick knacks. He picks up a foam sword but decides against mentioning it to Toph. She’d become a total menace with it and he knows it. He can already see exactly how it’d pan out he’d mention it to her, she’d snatch from his hands and test it out by hitting and poking him with it and then she’d end up buying it just to continue what would become her new favorite game, whacking Zuko over the head with a foam sword, and that would continue for one and half days back at the apartment until Zuko would get fed up, break the sword and then throw it away. So, yeah, he’s definitely not going to mention it. He places the sword back down onto the shelf and follows Toph who’s abandoned the game to delve deeper into the store.  
They wind up in the back corner of the store in the clearance section. Zuko’s facing the wall reading off some of the clearance game titles to Toph who’s behind him poking random things  
“Hey, Sparky, want to play a game?” asks Toph.  
Zuko turns around away from the wall and finds her standing in front of a large bin marked clearance filled with a hodgepodge of shitty games for different consoles.  
“Do I even have a choice?” he asks despite knowing he’s going to end up saying yes out of boredom anyways.  
“Nope,” says Toph, popping the P “I am going to go digging and pick out random games and we have to get one and actually play it. I need something to do over winter break,”.  
Zuko has to agree, it’s gotten boring just working and laying around the apartment doing nothing with Toph, what with the majority of their friends scattered around the world still off visiting their own families.   
Zuko sighs, “Fine, have at it,”.  
Toph waves her hand over the expanse of the bin before seemingly at random stopping and plucking a game off the top of the pile up and out of the bin. She hands it over for Zuko to inspect.   
He huffs a laugh, “Congratulations Toph, you managed to pick farming simulator 2017. Take on the role of a modern farmer in Farming Simulator 17. Grow, harvest and sell all kinds of crops- sunflowers, soybeans, wheat, sugarcane, cotton, and many more. Tend to your livestock including- pigs, chic-”  
“Fuck no,” says Toph cutting him off and she takes the game out of Zukos hands and throws it back into the bin. This time Toph wedges almost her entire arm down into the bin so she can search for something good. She nearly spills some of the games out of the bin with her digging but luckily nothing manages to make a break for it over the side of the bin and smash to the floor, breaking, forcing them to buy some worse than shitty game.  
“Aha,” exclaims Toph and she extracts her arm and the game she’s holding. She presents her bounty to Zuko who takes the game from her with a groan. “So, what’d I find? Is it the best thing you’ve ever seen,”  
“It’s Just Dance 2018.” he replies bluntly, turning over the game to read the list of songs on the back of it, “Huh,”.  
“What?” asks Toph resting her arms against the bin so she can lean over and get into his personal space as he tries to read the back of the game.  
“It actually has a lot of good songs,” Toph raises an eyebrow in question, “No really it has some of Bad Eclipse’s old songs,”.  
“Bad Eclipse let their songs be put on this shit?”  
“Apparently so,” says Zuko taking a step back away from the bin and away from where Toph was trying to stick herself into his personal space “huh, it apparently also comes with a free three month subscription to whatever just dance unlimited is and that has some songs from their older games and some other random songs to,”  
“Like what?” she asks.  
“Um, it has some songs from some air nomad bands, it has Secret Tunnel and a bunch of remixes of that, some Taylor Swift, but also some Joan Jett and the blackhearts, some ABBA, a lot of random one hit wonders, more bad eclipse and some Queen stuff too,” he reads off. Man, how did this piece of shit game manage to get so many actually good songs, do people even play this game anymore.  
“So, not complete shit then,” remarks Toph.  
“I mean yeah, the songs are pretty good but the dances are probably awful, and I can’t dance,” he says stepping back towards the bin but making no move to dump the game back into the abyss, instead he continues reading the back of the box and looking over the cover.  
“Please, you’ve admitted it yourself you took fancy pants dance lessons as a kid, you can dance Me on the other hand,” she says gabbing a thumb at herself “I don’t dance, it’s like totally stupid anyways,”. She doesn’t go back to rummaging in the bin but instead takes up rocking back and forth on the balls of her heels.  
“Yeah, it’s stupid,” he agrees, “I can’t dance, my balance for that type of thing is shit, and dancing today is literally just stupidly wiggling your body around, and yet I always make it look even stupider than it already is, not that I even do that,” he rushes out “I can’t dance and I don’t dance,”.  
“Yeah, but at least you can see what other people are doing and try to copy them, you have no idea how hard it is to try to have someone verbally explain to you what to do with your arms and your feet and when and where to shift your weight and all that stupid nonsense and not be able to see what they even mean. It makes no sense when people describe it aloud. And then sometimes they try to move your arms and legs like you're some sort of puppet. Dancing is stupid and it sucks,” she finishes.  
“Yeah, it is and it does. This game is stupid too, like who let it have so many good songs anyway, doesn’t anyone else realize how much it sucks,” he says lowering the game so he was no longer reading it but still holding it in his hands.  
She sighs, “Everyone else is too busy with their heads down sucking corporations dicks to realize anything,” she says shaking her head  
Zuko snorts, “Yeah, fuck just dance and it’s coporate overlord, ubisoft,”.  
“Fuck ‘em,”  
“Fuck ‘em,”  
They stand in front of the clearance for a few minutes in silence. The game still clasped in his hands and every now and then he flips it over to read the back and its list of songs. Toph chuckles underneath her breath.   
Zuko looks up from the back of the box at the sound, “What?” he prompts.  
“I am blind and can’t dance, your half blind and can’t dance so imagine if we were to get you an eyepatch, then we’d both be completely blind and shit at dancing,” Zuko chuckles to himself at the thought too, ‘And then, and then, Momo can be the judge so we can figure out who the worse dancer really is,” she says laughing to herself softly.  
Zuko flips the game back over to the front, “Well, the game is on clearance for only like $13 bucks, not that that means anything and I mean like sure, we do already have an old kinetic back at the apartment and all, so like yeah,”.  
“I mean like I think I have like some money on me,” she pulls out a crumpled bill and holds it up for him to see.  
“Um, yeah, you got $20,”  
“Oh, cool, not that that means anything” she says, returning the bill to her pocket.  
Zuko nods his head, “Yeah, cool, or whatever,”.  
The pair wordlessly shuffle towards the counter, stopping only occasionally to comment on the various things they bump into. When the cashier rings up the game Toph hands over her crumpled twenty and then they take the game, now in a plastic gamestop bag, and exit the store back into the mall.  
The two go back to just wandering around the mall, waiting for uncle to text them that he’s finally done with his own shopping. They pass by a few restaurants and some other clothing stores as they wind their way through the mall.  
When they pass by a dollar store Zuko points it out to Toph and casually mentions that hey, they probably have a medical section. So, the two of them enter the store and make their way to the medical care aisle.There on one of the shelves Zuko spots a small black eye patch and they take it to the front where they pay for it before exiting the store to go back to their wandering.  
Eventually Uncle texts them that he’s finished shopping and they make their way across the mall to the entrance where they had all originally started at before separating. When Zuko sees him as they approach the entrance he starts to regret their decision to leave him unsupervised in a department store for so long. Laying at the old man's feet is a pile of various shopping bags in all different colors and all different shapes. It also appears that he’s managed to find a wide brimmed sun hat adorned with a copious amount of fake flowers, and it’s also evident that he just couldn’t wait for spring or till they got home to put it on because there he, is standing among his sea of shopping bags, wearing the hat. Zuko sighs. Yeah, he definitely should’ve known better and not allowed boredom to cloud his judgement when Toph suggested taking a break to wander around on their own because wow, that is quite a hat and quite a lot of bags.  
Zuko groans as they stop in front of the older man, “Where are we going to put all this stuff?” he asks, already trying to figure just out how much of this stuff he’ll be able convince uncle to return one day.  
“I didn’t buy anything I didn’t think we needed,” says uncle looking down at the bags at his feet “and I am sure we’ll manage to find room in the apartment somewhere,”.  
Toph elbows Zuko in the ribs, “How much stuff did he buy anyways?”  
“Oh, not much,” says uncle trying to wave off the comment.  
“It looks like he bought out the entire mall,” mumbles Zuko to Toph who snickers and he turns back to uncle, “How did you even manage to carry all this stuff out here anyways?”.  
“Some kind young store associates offered to help me,” Toph cackles and all Zuko can do is sigh.Yeah, he definitely shouldn’t have left his uncle alone in the mall. The old man is a shopaholic.   
Uncle claps his hands together, “Oh, I almost forgot, do you like my new hat?” he asks beaming at them as he gestures to the hat on his head.  
“I think you look amazing uncle,”  
“Thank you, Toph”  
“Well,” starts Zuko “it’s.. it’s definitely a hat,”.  
“I am so glad you two think so,” says uncle before he bends down among the different bags and pulls out two similar hats which he extends to them, “Because, here, I found hats for each of us,”.  
Toph and Zuko accept the hats outstretched in their direction. “Thanks, Uncle,” she plops it down onto her head, “I bet it looks fantastic on me,”.  
Zuko takes a second to consider the shorter girl standing next to him, “It’s a green wide brimmed hat that’s the color of leaves on a tree and it has white pom poms ringed around it,”.  
“So in other words I look amazing,” she says running her hand along the hat's white pom poms “what about yours sparky?”.  
Zuko looks down at the hat in his hands before sighing and putting it on, “It’s a black wide brimmed hat with fake red firelilies all over it,”  
Toph cackles and wipes at imaginary tears at her eyes, “Thats... that’s amazing,” she manages.  
“Ah, and I see you’ve managed to find somethings for yourselves too,” says uncle gesturing to the game stop and dollar store bags in Toph’s hand.  
Zuko shrugs, “ehh, not really,”  
“Yeah, not really,” agrees Toph holding the bags closer to her body.  
The uber uncle must have ordered for them and all his shopping bags pulls up to the curb. The three of them load the bags into the back before then squeeze themselves into the car with excess shopping bags on their laps so they can make their way back home to the apartment.  
\---  
It’s two days later after their trip to the mall and Zuko’s laying on the couch watching something on cable, he doesn’t know what exactly. For the past five minutes it’s been nothing but commercials and he can’t remember what he had originally put on and is too lazy to check. Finally the commercial break ends just as he muses that the actually secluded program is more like a break from the never ending commercials. And then, Toph emerges from her bedroom wearing an old t-shirt and her black overalls.  
She makes her way over to the coach and flops down on the other end of the couch crushing his legs, which he had stretched out in that direction, in the process. He doesn’t bother moving his legs. If she wants to lay there on top of them then so be it, they’re probably uncomfortable and she’ll move eventually, right?   
She does not. Toph’s bored, he’s bored, and they spend the next hour watching a tv show about, well, Zuko still doesn’t know, he hasn’t been paying attention.   
It takes a while but eventually Toph heaves herself up off his legs and off the couch and makes her way back to her room. Zuko twists his position so his feet are dangling off the coach and will no longer end up crushed if Toph returns and flings herself back into the same position on the couch. Zuko can hear her rummaging around her room, knocking things over, a few loud crashes here and there and some mumbled curses, but it sounds fine to him so he stays where he is. If Toph needed help the crashes and curses would be much louder.  
A few minutes later the crashes and curses stop and she makes her way back to the living room with something in her hand. Zuko’s focus is still on watching what’s playing on the tv, so far he’s managed to figure out that it’s some sort of nature documentary but he still doesn’t know for what animal or what environment, when something small and black is flung at his head. Whatever it is it hits him in the forehead. Zuko picks it up from it’s fallen down to his chest, it’s the eyepatch.  
Toph moves in front of the entertainment stand and turns on the xbox. Zuko rises from the couch and stretches before he puts in the game that Toph had set down on the coffee table. He watches as the xbox turns on fully and the game starts to download. In the meantime he pushes back the couch and coffee table and armchairs to clear enough space for them. Zuko pauses to peel his socks off to prevent him from sliding around the wooden floor and then the next thing he knows the game’s done downloading, he’s made a random new profile with an equally random name, and now he’s scrolling through the list of songs to find something they’d both like.  
Is this weird? Yes. Is this probably going to end badly with at least one of them injured? Yes. Are they most likely going to get bored after 15 minutes? Yes. Would they then have wasted $13 bucks on garbage? Yes. But is he bored enough to try this? Yes.  
With some input from Toph they eventually settle on one of Bad Eclipse's older songs, Hate Me. Zuko selects the song, stands off to Toph’s left, and slides the eyepatch down over his right eye, making him completely blind.  
“Whoever gets the lowest score wins” announces Toph somewhere off to his right. And then the song starts.  
At first, Zuko mainly just listens to the song. It’s one of his favorites. And he stands there moving his shoulders in small little circles, occasionally he moves his arms and his hands. And the song continues. He can hear Toph next to him shuffling around, but he has no idea what she’s doing.   
It feels weird to not be able to see what he looks like dancing but also to not see what people around him look like dancing. There’s no one around for him to take cues from or to copy. He starts moving his hands and arms a bit more as he mumbles the lyrics underneath his breath. It’s a good song.  
He puts his arms in the air and rocks them back and forth gently, letting himself focus on the music and the lyrics and the fact that yeah, he really does, love this song. He experiments with moving his feet too, stepping forward them backwards a few times but making sure to take only small steps to not hit anything.   
And then the song’s ending. It was weird to try to just dance and not be able to see what he’s doing and to know that there’s no one around to see him either, to know that no one’s going to just start laughing at his failures on the dance floor. It was weird and strangely nice and it was fun to listen to some of his favorite music and dance around to it instead of just imaging in his head how he’d choreograph a music video to it and what he’d do and when/if he’d dance in the music video. It’s weird.  
When the last note of the music fades out Zuko slides up his eyepatch so he can see the tv screen. He can feel the ghost of a smile on his lips. He watches as the game displays their total points.  
“Congratulations,” he tells Toph, “You got the most points,”.  
“What!?!” yells Toph, “How did I lose at losing by winning?”.  
Zuko shrugs, “I don’t know. I guess I am just this apartment’s superior worst dancer,”.  
Toph knocks him in the arm with her fist, “You didn’t cheat, right, like no pecking?”.  
He snorts, “Nope, no pecking, and I didn’t cheat. How would I even cheat at this game?”.  
Toph gives a little half shrug, “I don’t know, but I am sure you’d figure something out to guarantee you’d lose, Sparky”.  
“Gee, thanks Toph,”  
He hits the next button and the screen stops displaying their scores and instead shows a highlight reel of their dancing.   
“Ummmm,”  
“What is it now?” asks Toph.  
“Well, apparently this thing has highlight reels where it shows clips of our dancing over and over again,” supplies Zuko.   
Toph shudders, “Let’s agree to never, ever, watch those,”.  
“Agreed,” Zuko queues up the next song, something from Queen, the eyepatch is slid back over his eye, blinding him, and then the music starts again.  
This time, he starts with off shuffling around. He shimmies his shoulders up and down, sways his arms close to his body. It’s fun. He even tries a few kicks with his legs. He shakes his arm above his head and switches it up doing different dance moves but other times he just shuffles his feet and arms. It’s freeing and he knows that with each song and with each verse in each song he’s letting go and letting himself learn how to have fun dancing. The Queen song ends and he isn't sure what she did, but somehow Toph managed to lose and thus win.   
He puts on another song, and another one after that, and another one after that, and so on. He’s moving his arms and legs further and further away from his body. He’s become more comfortable with the space and isn’t worried about hitting Toph, or the couch, or banging his shin against the table. There’s a lot of room to dance in so he does. He swings his arms high above his head as he spins in a circle, he stumbles, and nearly slips and falls on his ass, but he doesn’t so he laughs and keeps dancing. He shakes his arm at times, and other times his legs, and other times his hips and chest. Sometimes, he shakes everything.  
At times he can hear Toph laughing, and maybe even giggling to herself, somewhere off to his right. It’s nice to just wave his arms randomly and not worry about people judging him, he starts feeling the music doing random dance moves that don’t blend together but are fun. And, yeah, he keeps almost slipping but he also keeps laughing. He’s somehow managed to learn that whenever he does slip or stumble to just incorporate it into his nonsensical dance and embrace it. Toph doesn’t laugh when she hears him crash to the floor and he’s thankful that she doesn’t even ask if he’s okay just listens to make sure he’s still dancing.   
And if they know the lyrics to the songs they’re dancing to then they sing along. The two of them have gone from muttering the words underneath their breath to screaming them at each other and the tv and the empty apartment. Sometimes they get the words wrong but it’s okay because it’s fun. And if sometimes they scream out sounds of the instruments along with the lyrics then that’s okay too, because it’s also fun. Sometimes they just scream nonsense.  
They keep going for a while and start branching off with the songs. No longer are they just sticking to the rock songs everyone knows they both love, now they’re dancing to some fruity top 100 hit pop songs and they sing along to those too and they don’t question each other on how they both know the lyrics.   
Zuko jumps up and down, throwing his hair back and forth as he plays the air guitar and there’s some pop mosterity playing on the tv and he laughs. It’s weird but also some of the most fun he’s had in ages. He feels a lightness he never realized he was missing, he’s stopped overthinking and analyzing every move he makes and just throws his body around to the music, letting what happens happen.   
As they dance sometimes they bump into each other, a few times they’ve even collapsed into a heap on the floor, and they giggle together over it. There’s no one around to watch them or laugh or have the option to laugh at their dancing. It’s just them, Momo in the corner, and the game in front of them.   
Zuko claps his hands and stumps his feet, singing along. There are times they don’t know the lyrics but still try, and this is one of the times. He’s screaming the lyrics multiple beats behind the singer and sometimes he stops mid shout because he’s laughing and he can hear Toph nearby giggling as she does the same and as they both try to not fall on their asses again.   
“What are you doing over there?” asks Toph after they’ve moved onto a new song. Zuko’s been trying to remember the dance steps from something he saw online and failing, causing him to nearly fall multiple times as he smiles at his own inability to dance.  
“I am trying to remember some dance steps,”  
“Well what do you remember?” she asks, clapping her hands to the beat.  
Zuko tries to think of how to describe it out loud as he himself stumbles his way through the steps, “Okay, stand face on to the television and with your feet shoulder width apart. You’re not going to want move from that spot, you’re going to move just your limbs,”  
“Okay,” shouts back Toph over the din of the song.  
“Then, shift your weight to your left foot and step your right foot outwards, away from your stance, tap the ground then bring it back and then repeat. Then go back to the starting stance, and shift your weight to your right foot and step your left out and away from you, tap the ground, bring it back to you and then step out again and bring it back again too. Go back to the start position and take your right foot and as if you’re going to walk backwards take it a step back, tap the floor then bring it back to the beginning and then do that again and then repeat that same thing but with tapping your left foot back. Back to the start again,” he nearly slips as his weight shifts but he catches himself and just keeps going with it. “Bring your right knee across your body to your hip twice then back to start. Then bring your left knee up across your body to your right hip, twice then back to start. Clap twice, turn 90 degrees and repeat till you do it four times,”  
Toph laughs, “Like this?” she asks and Zuko can hear a few random thumps from his right.  
“Yeah, exactly like that,” he shouts back.  
They go back to their own dancing. Over the course of the day they take a few water breaks, and take turns winning and losing at their little game. And even though they aren’t keeping a total score they keep it up. Sometimes as they’re dancing Toph will shout out random instructions and other times it’s him shouting them out, they never know if the other does what they tell them to but it doesn’t matter because they keep doing it. Sometimes they give up with dancing and just belt out the lyrics into their fists. Sometimes as he clicks past the highlight reel Zuko catches a glimpse of Momo dancing with them in the background. The one unfortunate side effect of this is that he now knows for a fact that yes, the seeing eye flying lemur is infact a better dancer than both of them. Great, he can fly, he can see with both eyes, hear with both ears, and dance too. He’s the total package. It’s not fair that he’s so much more talented than both of them.  
They keep dancing and throwing their bodies around. Zuko laughs as he throws his elbows behind him and stumps along to the song. The sun’s been getting dimmer and dimmer out of the apartment’s windows but they just keep putting on the next song. He spins around and when he slips he lets himself tumble to the ground where he shimmies around before standing up again. And when he hears Toph fall a couple minutes later but can still hear her dancing he smiles to himself as he pumps his arms above his head wildly.  
They play through the day until Uncle comes home and they eat dinner together before fighting over who gets to take a shower first and who smells worse. They continue to play when they’re bored or stressed or angry or just feel like it during the rest of winter break up until Toph and Momo move back into the dorms. Even after that they make sure to play every couple weeks, just the two of them (and Momo of course).  
\----   
It’s months later and everyone is gathered in Zuko, Toph, and uncle’s apartment for game night. Toph and Zuko are sitting next to each other on the floor in front of the couch where Sokka, Suki, and Aang are sitting with Katara sitting off to the side in the armchair. How the two of them ended up being regulated to sitting on the floor in their own home, they don’t know.   
Katara’s sifting through a bin of games calling them out only for each one to get rejected, “How about FIFA?”  
“We played that one almost all last game night,” whines Sokka as he absentmindedly plays with his boyfriend’s hair.  
“Fine,” says Katara, throwing it back down into the bin, “How about Battlefield?”  
“That has too many guns and too much blood,” comments Aang.  
“Yeah, and it’s like what a waste, cause what’s the point of that being the best part of the game if I can’t even see it,” says Toph, popping a cheese puff from bowls of snacks on the table into her mouth. Katara sighs and returns that to the bin too.   
“What about something with racing?” suggests Suki.  
“No, nothing that’s an outright competition,” says Sokka.  
“Yeah, no competitions,” agress Zuko, stealing a cheese puff from one of the snack bowls that Toph had earlier claimed as entirely her own.  
Toph socks Zuko in his right arm, “You two are just tired of losing all the time,”.  
Sokka gasps and drops his hand from Zuko’s hair, “We don’t always lose,”.  
“Yeah, it’s not like we always lose,”  
Suki leans across the couch as if to whisper into Toph’s ear even though she still chooses to speak loud enough for all their friends to hear, “How about we leave these two gay idiot losers to lose together and me and you team up?”.  
“Fuck yeah!” says Toph.  
“We aren’t gay idiot losers,” tries to agrue Zuko but his argument isn’t that compelling because at the same time as when he’s saying that Sokka is also trying to argue with that statement, “You two are gay idiot losers, too”.   
Toph pushes herself up off the floor enough to punch Sokka in his right arm as Suki, who’s sitting next to him, punches him in his left arm.  
“Owww. Babe, Toph and Suki hit me,” whines Sokka as he rubs at where he was punched in the arms.  
“Then don’t provoke them,” says Zuko turning around to look up at Sokka.  
“I didn’t provoke them!”  
“You called them two idiot gay losers to their faces,” he says gesturing towards the two smirking girls “if you’re going to call them that at least do it outside of their punch radius,”.  
“It’s not my fault their punch radius is so big and I had to,”  
“Oh, you just had to provoke them?” he says, raising a brow in question.  
“Yeah,” says Sokka smirking “I was defending your honor,”.  
Zuko rolls his eyes and can hear Toph fake gagging next to him. He elbows her in the ribs which stops her from fake gagging because now she’s focusing on punching him in the arm. He shoves her away from him and she shoves him right back. Toph launches herself at him and tries to wrestle him but he fights back and the two of them end up in a wrestling match on the floor as their friends look on with amused expressions on their faces.  
“Oh, so you’re allowed to provoke them but I am not,” says Sokka from his seat on the couch as he watches his boyfriend and their bestfriend try to strangle each other.  
“I had to,” says Zuko as he tries to pry Toph’s hands away from his throat and shoulders “I am defending your honor,”.  
Katara abandons her armchair to go to the entertainment center, choosing to ignore the usual fighting and bickering that always seems to happen at games night. She sighs as she opens a separate cabinet that shouldn’t have any games in it but she’s getting desperate and apparently lucky too because she pulls out a game she’s never seen before but that’s something everyone might just agree on.  
“Hey,” she calls out, drawing everyone’s attention away from the wrestling match on the floor “how about Just Dance?” she says holding up the game.  
Toph and Zuko freeze mid-fight. The two of them immediately separate and look on terrified at their friend’s discovery.  
“Oooooo,” exclaims Aang clapping his hands together happily.  
“Sure, why not,'' says Suki.  
Sokka nods his head in okay, “You guys are going down,”.  
Zuko turns to look at Toph in panic, unsure of what to do, and she latches onto his arm, hard. She’s digging her nails into his arm as panic silently consumes him.  
“No, I don’t want to play Just Dance,” pipes up Toph.  
“Me neither,” rushes out Zuko, “let’s not play Just Dance,”.  
“Just say no to just dance,” laughs Toph before abruptly stopping her pained laughter and just loudly announcing to the apartment “Yep, no just dance here,”.  
Katara rolls her eyes, “You two are out voted, so we’re playing it,”.   
“Well it’s our apartment, so actually you’re out voted,” retorts Toph.  
Katara sighs. She lowers her head to pinch the bridge between her nose before looking back up at Toph and Zuko, “We need something to play, it’s game night, so we’re playing this,”. She turns toward the entertainment center to put the game into the xbox.  
Their panic intensifies. Toph jabs him in the elbows and he returns the favor as they scramble for something to say to stop Katara from loading the disc in.  
“Um, well, we can’t play that game…. It’s…. It’s-” starts Toph gesturing wildly with her hands as if grasping at straws that just aren’t there.  
“ABLEIST!” yells out Zuko causing everyone to turn away from tv and for Katara to turn around and face him and Toph. “Yeah, It’s like soooooo ableist,” he says, calming down a bit, focing the desperation out of his voice.  
“Yeah, definitely, it’s totally ableist,” agrees Toph, nodding her head vigorously as she runs with the excuse “and in fact we should just burn the disc in protest of its lack of accessibility”.  
“Yeah, I’ll go grab a lighter right now,” says Zuko, moving to stand up from the floor.  
Katara sighs and fixes with a glare that pins him in place, so he’s sitting on the floor, but she does stop trying to open the box, so that’s something, “Fine, but we can’t just burn it,”.  
“Of course we can,” says Toph waving off Katara’s concerns. “It’s fine just give it here and then me and Sparky will take care off it, promise” she sticks her arm out in Katara’s direction, making grabbing motions at the game in her hands.  
“I don’t trust the two of you around open flames,” says Katara.  
“What because we’re blind?” Toph narrows her eyes at Katara “Just hand it over, Sugar Queen,” she says, gesturing even more for her to hand over the game.  
“No,” counters Katara as the rest of their friends look on at what’s shaping up to become an epic debate, “because you two have a track record. You’re known to burn stuff that you weren’t even trying to burn so I can only imagine what you’d manage to light on fire when actually trying to burn something,”  
“Well, only one way to find out, hand it over,” says Toph, who’s now snapping her fingers at Katara in an effort to make her hand it over already.  
“No, it’s fine I think I am good,” she clutches the game closer to her chest and away from the outstretched snapping hand.  
Toph elbows him in the ribs so Zuko speaks up, “It’s fine Katara, me and Toph can take care of it so just hand over the box,” he says.  
“I don’t know babe,” chuckles Sokka “you two really do have a bad track record,”.  
“It’s fine,” snaps Toph “hand it over,”.  
“So no Just Dance then?” asks Aang from the couch.  
“Nope,” she says popping the P “Of course not, me and Sparky wouldn’t be able to see the dance moves, plus we can’t and don’t dance, so no Just dance for any of us. Now hand over the box,”.  
“I mean Zuko would still be able to see the dance moves,” remarks Sokka as he looks on at Toph’s frantic hand gestures with a brow knitted in ever growing concern. The rest of their friends nod their heads in agreement, Zuko does still have one good eye after all and would still be able to see the dance moves.  
Toph elbows him hard in the ribs to think of and say something, “It’s,” he struggles thinking “It’s.. about solidarity, yeah solidarity,” he settles on. “Yeah, I wouldn’t see the dance moves out of.. out of solidarity with Toph,” he finishes nodding his head along with what he’s said. Yeah, hopefully that makes sense, solidarity.   
“Well okay,” sighs Katara, “it’s too bad that it isn’t accessible. This thing has a lot of good songs and actually it has a lot of songs I think you two would probably like,”.  
“Oh well, what a pity,” says Toph waving her off and sticking her hand out again “now the disc,”.  
Suki, who had previously been silent through the ordeal content to watch it unfold, remarks, “Huh, I wonder where the game even came from,”. Everyone pauses to think about that, because yeah, where did it even come from.  
Toph throws up her hands, “Well who knows,” she says laughing “now the disc, Hand. It. Over,” she says dropping the fake cheer and laughter from her voice entirely.  
“I am not just going to let you two burn it,” snaps Katara before composing herself again “especially if it’s someone’s game, they could lose all their progress,”.  
Zuko looks up at the ceiling, silently begging any spirits out there to help them. At least, everyone’s agreed not to try to play it.  
“I am sure they wouldn’t mind, Ha ha ha, the disc?”.  
Katara ignores Toph and opens the game’s case, “Huh, there’s no name in it or anything just a random black eye patch for some reason,” she says holding up the eyepatch for everyone to see.  
“That’s so weird right, why don’t you give it here so I can see,”  
Katara narrows her eyes at Toph, “Your blind Toph, you can’t see. That’s the whole reason why we’re not playing this game,”.  
Toph waves her off “It’s a figure of speech,”.  
“Yeah, a figure of speech,” supports Zuko.  
“Exactly, and it’s a totally ableist one too, just like that game, so the disc?”  
“But where did it even come from?” asks Katara looking down at the game in her hand.  
“Maybe..” starts Zuko and everyone turns to look at him “Maybe… it’s Jin’s or Ty Lee’s? That’s a possibility?” he finishes, more a question than an explanation.   
“Yeah….that’s totally a real possibility,” says Toph supporting his suggestion.  
At the sound of the door opening everyone turns to see Jin walking into the apartment, pausing only briefly to take over her shoes, “Hey guys sorry I am late,” she calls out waving at them. “So have you decided what we’re playing this time?” she asks, taking a seat in the armchair Katara had vacated earlier to search for something for them to play.   
“Jin, is this your Just Dance?” asks Aang.  
“What? No,” she answers and Zuko has to fight the groan that’s threatening to spill out of his mouth, why couldn’t Jin just go with it and say it was hers. “Since when do we have Just Dance?” she asks. Everyone shrugs, and Toph and Zuko renew their praying to any and all spirits that will answer them.  
“Do you think it’s Ty Lee’s?” asks Katara, showing the game to Jin.  
“No,” interjects Suki shaking her head “ that wouldn’t make sense, if it was Ty Lee’s she’d keep it at the Kiyoshi warrior’s house and make us play it, like, all the time,”.  
“Maybe It’s Mai’s,” rushes out Toph drawing everyone’s attention back to her “And, and, it’s a secret and we should just put it away and forget it exists,”. Everyone looks at her confused with raised brows and open mouths. That is quite possibly the least Toph like statement they’ve ever heard her say and Zuko knows they’re all going to question it and her motives now. Toph would never normally willingly forget someone else’s silent shame.  
“What’s mine?” asks Mai who appears out of the stairwell and stands off to the side of the couch. She drags one of the dinner table’s chairs over into the living room so she can sit with everyone and takes a seat as she waits for an answer.  
“The Just Dance game,” supplies Aang “it’s okay if it is your game Mai. Dancing is a great form of self expression and you’ll receive no judgment from us, we’re your friends,”.  
Mai quirks an eyebrow at the disc and gives a monotone “No,” that everyone knows means it no, it is definitely not her’s.  
Zuko racks his brain for who else is left for them to claim it could belong to, “Maybe, maybe it’s uncle’s?” he says shrugging.  
“Yeah, that sounds like a legitimate possibility, hahaha,” agrees Toph “And it sounds so much like uncle too. Ha Ha Ha, that’s so him,”. She wipes at completely nonexistent tears welling up in her eyes, “Well, we don’t want to disturb his progress so let’s just put the game away and move on,”. She says clapping her hands together to clasp them in front of her, “so who’s in the mood for some FIFA, maybe some FORZA,”.  
“Oh, this is ridiculous,” snaps Katara, “let’s just see who’s progress is on it,” she whirls around toward the tv and pops the disc into the xbox.  
Zuko and Toph shot up off the floor and toward Katara and the tv screaming out a strung of “No, Nope, Nahs, No”. Toph grabs at a remote on the coffee table and fumbles with the buttons before finding and hitting the power button on it.  
“Toph, what are you doing? Why did you turn on the fan?” asks Katara.  
“FUCK!” screams Toph. Zuko tries to lunge toward the tv and manually hit the off button on the back of the tv before the game can finish loading, but Katara’s in his way. She sticks her arm and glares at him, stopping him in his tracks before he can reach the tv.  
“Seriously what’s wrong with you two? Why are you acting like this? We just want to get to the bottom of this,” yells Katara.  
“That’s really not necessary. I am fine not knowing,” says Zuko trying to weasel his way past Katara and to the tv.  
“I am fine not knowing either,” pipes up Toph, “In fact I am great. So because we’re all fine not knowing, who wants to play a card game?”.  
“Are you guys okay?” asks Sokka leaning off the couch towards them voice thick with concern.  
“We’re peachy keen jelly bean,” snaps Toph, making a grab for the controller Katara’s holding in preparation of navigating the console and game’s interface. Using Toph’s distraction Zuko tries to sneak past and hit the power button but Katara sticks out her arm to stop him as she fends off Toph and Zuko doesn’t really want to just shove her out of the way, though the idea does cross his mind a couple of times.  
The game finishes loading. Katara’s still fending off Zuko and Toph efforts as she uses the controller to check whose account has progress under it. Toph grabs at the controller, Katara bumps her with her hip out of the way and clicks on whoever the fuck Lavamole is. Zuko lunges at the tv power button but Katara grabs his wrist and hurls him to his feet and away from her. Toph’s still trying to get the controller out of her hands but Katara’s determined and just keeps clicking buttons, going deeper and deeper into the game’s different loading screens.  
“Toph STOP!,” she screams and swats at the girl.  
“We’re just curious, relax, you two” yells Suki.  
Jin bobs her head in agreement, “Yeah, I am invested now,” .  
“Yeah and we already promised not to play it,” says Aang “Checking their progress won’t delete it for whoever’s it is so it’s okay,”.  
Zuko gives up with the tv’s power and instead inches his way closer to the physical console. He tries to hit the eject button or the power button, at this point he’ll take any button he can reach, but Jin stops him from the armchair and grabs his wrist so he can’t hit either button.  
“Dude, what the fuck?” she asks.  
“Are you two sure you’re okay?” asks Sokka.  
“Yeah, why are you two being so weird about this? It’s fine, now let go of me Toph, or so help me I’ll, URG!” she screams as she continues struggling against her before managing to wiggling her way out of Toph’s grasp. She uses the controller to finally click onto the only profile in the game.  
Everyone falls completely quiet as pop music blairs from the TV on a short loop. Toph whispers to Zuko who’s ended up standing next to her, staring at whatever’s playing on the tv, “What?”.  
Zuko whispers back in a choked voice, “I think autosave was on,”.  
“AUTOSAVE FOR WHAT?” hisses out Toph.   
“The highlights reel,” he whispers back horrified as the same short clip of music continues to play over and over again in the background. There’s no other sound expert for their whispers and that stupid pop song.  
“For What?”  
“Everything.”  
“Everything?”  
“Everything,” he says nodding.  
“SPARKY!!!!” she screams.  
Zuko launches himself forward and manages to push the eject button unobstructed this time. The music stops and the disc pops out. As the machine is spitting it out he flings it across the room and it lands with a small thud on the couch.  
“But you two just said-” starts Aang.  
“Run” hisses Toph into Zuko’s good ear. She launches herself onto his back and he runs out of the apartment, down the steps, and out of the alleyway with Toph on his back. Luckily, he was wearing his good pair of house slippers today, so he has shoes on. But unfortunately, now he’s going to have to throw him out when, if, they go back home. They have outside dirt on them now. When they’re a block away from the apartment, Toph hops off his back and takes his arm in his and they resume their walking.  
At first, they could hear shouts from behind them but those quickly faded and now instead they can feel their phones vibrating in their pockets with text messages and missed calls, but they keep going, walking down more and more blocks away from the apartment.  
Somehow, they ended at Sun Warriors ice cream and decided to go in and try to drown their shame in ice cream. They haven’t bothered to check their phones and probably won’t for a while. They take a seat indoors and silently eat their shame ice cream. Toph had gotten a medium sized cup of salted caramel that’s more gummy bears than ice cream while Zuko had ordered a large cup with three scoops of cookies and cream, cookie dough, and chocolate fudge brownie. Faster than they’d both like they eventually finish their ice cream. Now they’re going to have to go back to the apartment. Running from their problems and out of their own home hadn’t been a good idea in hindsight.   
They order some ice cream cones for the road and the pair start the trip back to the apartment. They reach the Jasmine Dragon and duck down it’s sidealley to the door that leads to the stairwell and up into the apartment above the store. Zuko, who had luckily forgotten to take his keys out of his pockets earlier in the day, unlocks the door and they head up the stairs together. They pause only briefly in front of the door at the top of stairs before Zuko sighs and pushes the door open. Zuko and Toph step through the door into the living room of the apartment.  
“Let me guess, they’re all still here aren’t they?” asks Toph.  
“Aha,” hums Zuko in response.  
“And now they’re all staring at us?”  
“Aha,”  
“And we’re not drunk enough for this are we?”  
“Aha,”  
“I told you we should’ve gone for booze and not ice cream,” hisses Toph elbowing him in the ribs.  
“Well, I didn’t hear you complaining when you were eating all those gummy bears,”  
“Yeah, that was then and this is now,”  
“Aha,” hums Zuko in response. They stand there in silence for a few more beats and Toph bits a chunk out of her ice cream.  
“Well might as well get this over with,”  
“Aha,”  
They take another step further into the apartment and close the door behind them.

**Author's Note:**

> I was suppose to be working on a much longer fic but I got this idea in my head and became fixated on it, so now 8,000 words later this happened, I hope you like it and these two idiots as much as I do. And naturally I couldn't wrote something without adding in some Zukka  
> (Also the song playing on loop as everyone watches is Hips Don't Lie and both Zuko and Toph are twerking along to it as Momo dances in the background)  
> (Also Also everyone is more upset that they didn't bring everyone else ice cream than they are that they hid this for months)  
> (Also also also once again my title is inspired by the queen Carly Rae Jepsen)


End file.
